Help Photography, the law and a terrorist

[DaGaffer]

would it still be retarded if a plane piloted by terrorists crashed into it? or a suicide bomber gets through check points to blow up a large tank??

Oh FFS! Like I said, Google makes that argument redundant anyway.

jesus christ we arent talking about your local bloody park or tesco's, we are on about something that is off limits to the public anyway. its not like they threw you against the bonnet of your car and strip searched you is it?

But they also came after him on public property! Think about it, if your terrorist was going to photograph something important why would they do from the fucking car park in plain view of probably about a billion security cameras? Or is the intention to just go after the particularly thick terrorists?

if the erosion of civil liberties, and lets be clear on this means answering a few questions keeps this country safe then so be it. all this bull shit about oh theres no risk and the current climate etc, fuks sake open your eyes, they rarely happen because our intelligence services stop them god knows how many attacks have been halted that we dont know about? incase you didnt know we are not a popular nation.

Maybe we're not a popular nation because we have no respect for people's rights? Maybe if the powers that be started to respect their own population they'd stop being such ***** everywhere else? Maybe you should stop watching Spooks and get a clue?

this is what is wrong with this country ppl get there pissin backs up over something so trivial it shouldnt even be an issue, jesus id be happy to know someone took the time to take an interest in the safety of their workplace.

Ah "safety", the noose that will hang us all.

but hey this is just my retarded oppinion right well frankly m8 yours is just as retarded in my eyes.

You can sleepwalk into a police state if you want, but if the price of liberty is the occasional bomb, then so be it.

 

[old.user4556]

Or is the intention to just go after the particularly thick terrorists?

Gaff you've got me worked out

 

[chipper]

You can sleepwalk into a police state if you want, but if the price of liberty is the occasional bomb, then so be it.

tell that to the poor bastards who got blown up on the tube station and buses, the people who died in 9/11 and all the other terrorist attacks which arent as widely reported.

im not talking about being a police state, im talking about a bit of caution around sensitive areas of the nation

as for the whole taking pictures from a car park thing come on your all smarter than that.

one question if u were going to take pictures for nefarious means would you.

a) take it in a public place where you are unlikely to arouse much suspicion and can play the charm card if anyone does approach you, afterall they cant take your film from you.

b) risk getting caught taking pictures from a concealed location in a bush or whatever and have next to no chance of explaining yourself and getting taken into custody and held under terrorism charges for however long they can hold u now.

its not rocket science im not saying put armed police on every street corner and interrogate every one with a beard that would be over stepping the mark,
but a little added security around high profile structures is wise.

no one remember the saying better to be safe than sorry? they can try a thousand times but they only have to succeed once for us to have another national tragedy on our hands, im sure no one wants that. this is a highly volatile plant, i dread to think of the dmg it could cause if attacked succesfully.


you can agree with me or not thats your perogative but this is how i feel and i feel strongly about it. its not an ideal situation and 10 years ago id not feel like this but because of events this decade id rather not take the chance.

 

[Mabs]

one thing i notice from your post gaffer, is that you seem to think any measure introduced is terminal ?

having martial law in war time etc works, and at the end, you repeal it. i dont have a problem with this stuff in the short-ish term, and while it technically IS a war, then so be it. the "but it will be here for ever" argument may be a part of it, but as far as im concerned its further down the line, and id like to be alive to see it come to that point - thus im not overly worried about it at the mo, that may change of course in 1,3,5,10,20 years, but as long as the papers dont all start printing the same headline "arent the party great" we should be ok

 

[nath]

tell that to the poor bastards who got blown up on the tube station and buses, the people who died in 9/11 and all the other terrorist attacks which arent as widely reported.

I would. I expect some of them would agree. I certainly would - I'm a Londoner and I'm in no rush to chuck away civil liberties for a little extra safety. Plus I'm not so keen on letting other peoples fear fuck up this country. All that aside, it's pretty clear that in Big G's situation it was just some fuckwit on a power trip.

Mabs: where does a war on terror™ end? When we've killed all the Arabs?

 

[Ch3tan]

Same as nath. Londoner here. All I see is more and more restrictions and laws that are designed to control us and give the government access into our lives that they should not have. We live in a country with a democratically elected government, a lot of people need to remember that and stop accepting everything that they tell us is for our own good.

 

[Raven]

where does a war on terror™ end? When we've killed all the Arabs?

When we have got all the oil

 

[DaGaffer]

tell that to the poor bastards who got blown up on the tube station and buses, the people who died in 9/11 and all the other terrorist attacks which arent as widely reported.

I would. I've lived in London for a long time, and I take my chances like everyone else. It wasn't that many years ago that I was woken by an IRA bomb a few hundred yards from my house.

one thing i notice from your post gaffer, is that you seem to think any measure introduced is terminal ?

Unfortunately, I think it is terminal. "Al Qeada" is the perfect invisible enemy that we could still be "fighting" a 100 years from now (qf. John McCain). This isn't like the Nazis or the Soviets, or even the IRA, where there's a winnable endgame or defined enemy (Al Qeada is an idea and a franchise, not an army). Plus, there are quite clearly people in this country who feel that Total Surveillance is somehow a good thing in itself. Problem with that is, once you've got it, you're going to want it to pay its way and because it will never quite work as well as you expected, there will be a constant creeping increase in invasiveness. I was reading about Jacqui Smith's latest data warehouse plans yesterday and they're just fucking insane (clearly someone in MI6 has something on her, no-one can be that stupid), because it ludicrously expensive, its massively unethical, and it. won't. work.

 

[MYstIC G]

Mabs, you accept to much. We are being encouraged to be big brothers eyes and it is getting ridiculous.

But it's cheaper than installing the cameras!

 

[Himse]

Mabs seems to know far too much about all this, the only obvious explanation is that he's osama bin laden !

QUICK SECRET FBI FH USERS! ITS MABS! GO GET HIM!!

you tried.

but failed ;(

 

[Tom]

I'd love to meet someone telling me that I can't film. In fact I've seen it happen a couple of times and always the response has been "we're on public property and can film whatever we like".

Terrorist, lol. What bullshit. I could take a van full of dead sheep up to Lake Thirlmere and poison Manchester's water supply. No photos needed for that.

 

[Chilly]

Mabs: what offended you in my post?

I'm playing the purely logical person here, money spent on healthcare saves more lives than money spent on giant databases designed to catch tax dodgers...er...terrorists. Of course I dont want to get blown up, but I also dont want to die of preventable, treatable diseases. Which do you think is more likely to happen?

Obviously there is a justifiable, reasonable amount of time and money that you spend on CT activity, beyond that point it's either power greedy civil servants trying to increase their remit or politicians trying to get votes. Not to mention the old boys contract club.

I believe we spend too much on security and the majority of what we have is ineffective theatre, designed to give us the illusion that Something Is Being Done etc. What needs to be done is put more police on the ground and put as many muslim pisstake jokes in the papers as we need to until the retard muslims out there develop a sense of humour and we can get past this entire heap of shit.

Spending billions on expensive, useless computer systems that satisfy some equally useless US requirement for entry just pisses everyone off.

If a simple no-fly list cannot be maintained properly then how do you think some all encompassing computer system that tracks our comms and movements will work? It wont, it will waste money, it will drive the very people we need at the moment out of the country and it will end in tears for whatever government decides to implement it.

 

[Sharma]

Obviously too many people reading the Sun and Daily mail here.

We had a similar thing in Boro a while ago, the result was a flash mob of around 40 people turning up taking random pictures of the high street and riot police were called in, fortunately nobody could be arrested since after a long drawn out enquiry they wern't breaking any laws.

All it is, is paranoia, simple.

This whole "protecting the peace" is complete and utter bollocks.

Terrorist powers as much as they're there to catch em, in general they're a pile of shit and as has been said it's purely for the purpose of controlling people.

Fear controls.

 

[old.user4556]

Just to bring this thread back on topic, I have a letter through the door from the police asking me to contact them as soon as possible regarding the "incident". I can't wait to give them a piece of my mind.

 

[Tom]

G just write a letter back explaining you were on public property and telling them to mind their own business.

 

[Will]

I'm tempted to get up to Grangemouth and take some pictures myself. If I do it once a week, the police would surely get bored eventually.

 

[old.user4556]

The officer was really sound about it. Nice bloke.

 

[Chilly]

and said?

 

[rynnor]

Chet, nah; I figuered that the questions he asked were non-invasive enough that I should just go along with it. If he has pressed for more things other than my name, what I was doing and registration plate then I would have resisted.

I was only pissing around with the camera so wasn't worth a confrontation.

Did you get a picture of the guard bloke? I would - it always upsets em

Unless he produces a police warrant badge I would never answer the guys questions - its pretty pathetic anyway - as if someone dubious would give their real name and address lol!

I'm with Da Gaffer on this one - I'm london born and have always worked there - I remember the IRA terror campaigns, the poor old baltic exchange and the 7/7 and copycat one a few weeks later. I was lucky on 7/7 that I got an earlier tube as I pass through 3 of the bomb sites on my way to work but it still doesnt mean we should chuck away all our hard won freedoms in a politically motivated climate of fear!

 

[old.user4556]

and said?

His body language said "we both know this is a waste of time and pathetic" given his smiles, sighs and apologies. However, it is rated as a very high risk to the UK (Grangemouth) along with power stations and other such establishments. He took a statement; why I was there, what I took a picture of, what time of day, my occupation (to which he said "photograher?" and a lol). I explained that it looked like it would make a nice night time shot since West Lothian has nothing of interest to photograph at night (again, he laughed and nodded) as my missus used to go there as a kid and liked all the lights.

We both agreed that it was trivial, and that they get 1000 (!) of these incidents a year but they have to follow them all. He thanked me for coming to the station, apologised for wasting my time and that I "clearly wasn't a terrorist" and I was "fully aware of the procedures and what I was doing and the possible risk of photographing such things" etc etc.

Additionally, he recorded my complaint (he offered to take one, I get the feeling the police are building a case here to get this off their case?) that a) it was a public road b) there was no signage to say "no photographs" and if the public weren't to take any, they should put up large and adequate warning signs c) i wasn't trespassing, so it wasn't his business to pursue me on a public road d) if I was a terrorist who needed to map the place, that I could get all the maps I want (he interjected here) from "google maps? ... yeah I know". He's heard it before by the sounds of it.

He apologised again, thanked me again and that I "had better things to do than come down here about a photograph" and said i'd hear nothing more of it. He added "if someone was really a terrorist, would they have given genuine details? would they have come down the station? ... of course not!"

Clearly the police don't care, it sounds like the security at Grangemouth are arsey and bored.

 

[Vae]

Now you ought to go back and take more photos and see what the security do then!

 

[Damini]

Terrorism is such BS. More people die to ninja fork attacks in this country than to "terrorism".

I stuck a fork in my brother's head, and he didn't die. He just got really angry.

 

[Cadelin]

I stuck a fork in my brother's head, and he didn't die. He just got really angry.

Then clearly that was a pirate fork and not a ninja fork attack. You can tell the difference because people tend to yell: "Yarrrrrrrrrrgh" after a pirate fork attack.

 

[Ctuchik]

i think its being a bit naieve on your part m8. In todays climate its to be expected in sensitive areas like this, true you are only taking photos for fun, but remember someone could be taking them for more insidious purposes.

yes and ofc they will park in a bus stop where everyone will see them. and especially with a bigass camera. they probably have something abit more sofisticated.

besides, if they wanted proper pictures of that site they would use google maps.

 

[Scouse]

Hey, don't shoot me for ressurecting this - it's about pictures after all!

...some employers are beginning to quiz would-be employees about the nature of the material they use for sexual titillation...

Gah. Maybe I'm just 'dreaming up' these attacks on civil liberties...